Sideswipe

Fossicking through a box of vinyl unearthed this impressive country line-up.

A reader writes: "Visiting Watson's Bay in Sydney, a busy and popular eastern suburbs beach, I observed a person pull up and park their vehicle. They got out and crossed the road and took a parking ticket from another vehicle that had been issued with one. They returned to their own vehicle and placed the ticket under the windscreen wiper and then walked off to the beach with picnic hamper in hand."

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A reader writes: "I was sitting on the terraces with my 7-year-old, cricket-mad son watching the rugby match against Ireland, soaked to the skin and freezing. After 15 minutes he asked me if it was a test match. When I said yes, he replied, "Oh no, we're here for five days!"

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What are the odds? Kate Frazerhurst had a strange encounter with a six-pack of free-range eggs on Friday night. "I was making chocolate puddings for dessert and the recipe required six eggs. The first egg I cracked into the bowl was a double-yolker, the first one I have ever come across, so you can imagine how exciting that was. Then I cracked the next egg. It was another double-yolker. I cracked the third, another one. The fourth, another. The fifth, yet another double-yolker. Five out of the six eggs were double-yolkers, so 11 yolks for the price of six. I wonder what GE is doing to our hens?"

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These are the odds: Some of the Herald's night-shift sub-editors are wondering if they should give up on Lotto. With the 1000th draw only seven weeks away, the 10 members of the subs' syndicate, who each put in $2 a week, have calculated they have spent just under $20,000 on tickets. The syndicate's estimated total winnings in all those years? A paltry $250.

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Britain's Radio 4 has taken to broadcasting little snippets of birdsong before the six o'clock news, just like Radio New Zealand. (Although RNZ did try to cull the dawn chorus, listeners caused a flap and the birds were spared). The usual audio sound bite, a chiming Big Ben, is being repaired and when the station asked, listeners said they wanted tweety birds. A journalist from the Independent is uneasy about the change. "It makes me feel as if there is some gigantic unfolding disaster stalking the land, and the song of a thrush has been put on in order to soothe our nerves and distract us from the cataclysm which threatens to devour us all," he says.

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The BBC reports that a restaurant in China's southern Hunan province is offering dishes cooked with human breast milk. "When the customers are having the human milk banquet, they can experience maternal love at the same time," says the restaurant owner, who plans to offer a banquet featuring 108 dishes made with human milk. The current supply is provided by six peasant women who are still breast-feeding their children.